


a long bright horizon

by mollivanders



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Developing Relationship, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Gen, RebelCaptain May the Fourth Exchange, Vacation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-05
Updated: 2018-05-05
Packaged: 2019-05-02 10:06:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14542356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mollivanders/pseuds/mollivanders
Summary: Jyn froze. “You sliced into the resort files?” He shrugged, as if to sayof course, and she couldn’t stop the grumble that escaped her.“Kay helped you,” she guessed, and Cassian’s lips quirked but admitted nothing else.Spy.“Whose cover is the worst then?” she asked, “according to Kay?”He tipped his glass towards a flashy, young-ish man nervously drumming his fingers against the bar as he waited for his next drink.“That,” Cassian said in an almost conversational tone, as if the potential – possible – probable – Imperial wouldn’t hear them, “is green all over and fresh out in the field.”





	a long bright horizon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RapidashPatronus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RapidashPatronus/gifts).



> Written for RapidAshPatronus for the RebelCaptain May 4 Exchange with the prompt of " I feel like with their lives being as they have, neither Jyn nor Cassian has ever had a holiday, so maybe they get a chance to take a few days somewhere sunny?"

“This is an unapproved use of your shore leave,” the mechanical voice insisted over the comms as Jyn dodged another round of blaster fire, slamming Cassian out of the way and into a wall with her shoulder. It was, to be fair, a friendlier voice than it had been a few months before, but it still carried a heavy weight of judgment as if the voice thought this situation was undoubtedly Jyn’s fault and if she’d just followed orders – orders to relax on shore leave – none of this would have happened.

(It didn’t help her pride that that might be true.)

“Didn’t ask,” she shot back, ducking her head as Cassian stumbled back into a heated run beside her.

“You never do,” the mechanical voice intoned mournfully, but her next reply was cut short as a blaster shot grazed her hand and she dropped her comm.

“Kay,” Cassian yelled into his comm, “fly faster.”

Ten klicks, by Jyn’s last count. Ten klicks from the city, racing from cover and probably evading a squadron of TIE fighters to come save their collective rears. Protocol dictated that K-2 leave them behind and escape with the intelligence that Tipska was no longer a safe thoroughfare for Alliance operatives, let alone shore leave.

“Hands up,” a very different mechanical voice said, rounding the corner in front of them with a stormtrooper squadron. It was a different squadron than before but the ‘troopers were already falling into formation to block the alleyway and, casting a look behind her, she heard the shuffle of booted feet closing in from the other direction. They were trapped, unless K-2 could shave a few more seconds off that rescue. Casting a quick look at Cassian, Jyn did a mental count. Their blasters were empty, the grenades were back at the hotel, and K-2 wasn’t answering on comms.

They were out of time.

+

  
_five standard days earlier_

“Tell the truth, Cassian,” she said, digging her toes more deeply into the sand. “You think Draven sent us here for some other reason and that’s why we have _shore leave_.” She made little air quotes around the last two words as Cassian sat down next to her with fruity looking drinks.

“There is no secret agenda,” he said and she scoffed, accepting of the drinks. “It’s mandatory leave.”

“With the Alliance?” she whispered, and his mouth tightened as she failed to keep all the strained disbelief from her voice.

“Not one that I know of,” he admitted and she sighed with satisfaction, leaning back into her lounge chair. The resort had them scattered all along the beach, along with the complimentary fruity drinks that Jyn didn’t actually like but that still left a pleasant tingle in her fingers and toes.

Cassian was quiet for a moment longer before asking quietly, “Is that why you brought the grenades?”

She looked over to face him and was almost startled by his seriousness. Part of her was glad; at least Eadu had made them a team on this front. Part of her was just miserable that Cassian, who deserved shore leave more than anyone, had been sent out on another job for the Alliance, taped together as he was.

“There’s always a secret agenda,” she said quietly. “It’s a _rebellion_. That’s mandatory too.” This last was whispered conspiratorially into Cassian’s ear, shifting the mood, and if a flustered blush crept up the back up his neck, well, she wasn’t complaining. “Fifty credits says there’s an Imperial plot being hatched right under our noses.”

“Isn’t there always?” he returned, settling back into his lounge chair and scanning the shoreline. For all that his posture suggested leisure, his eyes gave away his focus. Even on alleged shore leave, even when insisting there wasn’t a secret plan, he couldn’t turn the rebel officer off.

Not that she’d want him to. For her part, she’d already noted the major families vacationing here, separating them out from those using the resort as cover for some shady deal or another. The beach stretched for several kilometers in either direction but it was only a short run behind them towards a speeder park with older models she could rewire in her sleep. Even if this was real shore leave – the first either of them had ever had – she couldn’t turn off her instincts. The first night they’d been here, she’d stayed awake the whole night, and Cassian barely feigned rest better than she did, blasters at the ready under their too-soft pillows.

“Why here?” she asked, probing further. If Cassian actually knew, he might not tell her for some secret spy reason, but he also might _not_ know. It didn’t mean there wasn’t a secret agenda, some plot that Draven was waiting to spring and use them to back up at a moment’s notice. It didn’t mean the Empire wasn’t hatching something here even if the Alliance wasn’t.

“You mean,” Cassian asked dryly, shooting her a look, “why were we dropped at a tourist location known to harbor civilians and Imperials and criminals alike? Why now? After Yavin?”

“Mmm,” she said around her straw and spotted the smile around his eyes. He was still in rebel officer mode, on high alert, but at the edges – at the corner of his mouth – a new hope glimmered with promise.

“There is always,” Cassian said quietly, a soft reminder in his voice, “a secret agenda.” She wasn’t sure if the reminder was more for her or himself, but then he caught her glance and smiled. “But you’re not fifty credits richer yet.”

+

The _official_ reason they were on Tipska was because it was remote and catered to all kinds of guests, so the Empire wouldn’t be on high alert for vacationing Rebel officers.

The _more_ official reason was that it had technically been two decades since Cassian had done anything but fight, pushing shore leave options onto more junior officers. Now that he was finishing his recovery from Scarif, the Alliance was strongly encouraging him to take some in bulk. From what she’d heard outside the briefing room, it was less a suggestion from Draven than an order, which fed her suspicions all the more. Still, with the evacuation from Yavin IV to _Home One_ , they didn’t need him there anyway.

“Now is the time to strike back,” Cassian had grumbled on their way to the U-Wing. “Not hide out.”

(The fact that he’d said this at all had made her even more suspicious of Draven.)

So, on the trip over, as Cassian quietly tinkered with K-2, continuing the more detailed repairs the droid needed after Scarif, she dug into Alliance files. There was only so much she could do from a remote U-Wing, but she’d torn apart the ship’s computer files for any contingency plans, or anything else that might prepare them for whatever was really waiting on Tipska. She hadn’t been Saw’s best soldier for nothing, and three days into space, she’d landed something.

The _real_ reason for the Tipska trip probably had something to do with an Imperial plan to seize control of a transit hub the Alliance had been using for years, and by Jyn’s estimate, dropping a spy who wasn’t on the job but couldn’t but keep his eyes peeled into the midst of it all would give the Alliance fair warning to get their people out. The question had been whether he’d known, or at least suspected.

She was still learning that Cassian, as a rule, _always_ suspected. That probably had as much to do with him still being alive too.

At least this time, she thought, they were suspicious together.

+

“My credits are on General Bluffster over there,” Jyn said, swinging her legs over the edge of the barstool. It was simply unfair how all barstools were half a meter too tall for her, which made it more difficult to project an air of tough intimidation in backdoor deals.

She’d learned to compensate.

Cassian snorted under his breath, casting a subtle look to his three o’clock.

“You mean the retired merchant who sold his business four months ago,” Cassian said, “and has been splurging his retirement savings here ever since?”

Jyn froze. “You sliced into the resort files?” He shrugged, as if to say _of course_ , and she couldn’t stop the grumble that escaped her.

“Kay helped you,” she guessed, and Cassian’s lips quirked but admitted nothing else. _Spy_.

“Whose cover is the worst then?” she asked, “according to Kay?”

He tipped his glass towards a flashy, young-ish man nervously drumming his fingers against the bar as he waited for his next drink.

“That,” Cassian said in an almost conversational tone, as if the potential – possible – probable – Imperial wouldn’t hear them, “is green all over and fresh out in the field.”

She choked on her drink, stealing another look at the target. Scruffy clothing, but not _too_ scruffy; baby fat still hanging on his cheeks; bloodshot eyes from being on high alert around the clock.

“Academy,” she murmured, slipping into a familiar role. Her old instincts would have told her _cop_ in any other setting, but in this one Cassian was more than likely right. “Active? Or a plant?”

Cassian shrugged, finishing his drink and standing from the bar. “Want to find out?” he asked, extending his hand, and a thrill went through her, the mad joy that accompanied taking down an Imperial plot.

“Captain,” she said in a low whisper, forcing him to bend down to catch her words, “I’m going to show you how it’s really done.”

+

Slicing in to one of the resort’s public terminals was child’s play, and it soothed her wounded pride a little that K-2 and Cassian had gotten around it so quickly. More importantly, the guest file on Lieutenant Green-Behind-the-Ears, or – as his alias would have it – Rax Hawker – was paper thin until she tried to access the information on who had paid for his room.

“Find something?” Cassian murmured, blocking her from prying eyes as he leaned in front of her. Having him in her space was almost familiar by now, but still potent in its own way. She blinked, focusing, and tried another backdoor which flared in protest across the screen.

“Kriff this,” she muttered and, working around the firewalls as quickly as she could, bounced the file across a series of planetary servers to their ship. “K-2 can clean the trail and send it to our room,” she said and started wiping her trail from the terminal. “If the Empire’s paying that close attention, we can’t stay here anyway.”

“It’s too bad,” Cassian said as they headed away from the terminal, which had just suffered a critical error that erased all its logs, “I was just starting to enjoy shore leave.”

She tugged at his hand, fingers lacing between her own as they took the long way home.

“We still can,” she said brightly, repressed mirth in her eyes as he caught her look and flushed again. _Spy_ , in all things but her. “Until they come for us.”  
If their steps quickened, if they cut a few corners back to their room – the Empire wasn’t watching.

Yet.

+

There were worse places to die, she thought, than a planet with beautiful beaches, a bright sun, and friendly flora. Still. She’d rather _not die_ at all, given the choice. She’d rather outlast the Empire and learn all the ways Cassian caught his breath and see Bodhi make rank as a commander and live under her own name. She wouldn’t trade this for anything but the Empire’s death in turn.

For now though, her mind wandered as she pretended to innocently stroll the beach. She, Cassian and K-2 had stolen parts for a radar test along the shoreline, which provided the best attack line on the resorts themselves. After K-2 had finished lecturing her engineering, and Cassian had finished soothing K-2, it had just been the two of them in the warm night, waiting for whatever came next.

(And her mind wandered.)

“Still nothing,” Cassian’s voice announced into her earpiece and she shook herself. Discreetly, she sent out another test _ping_! towards the horizon as Cassian monitored the signal over comms.

“Anything there?” she asked, squinting into the sunlight.

“Not yet,” Cassian replied in a clipped tone, focused on the task at hand. “I’ll try boosting the signal.”

An open channel like this was a risk, but seeing as the Alliance had sent them here without a mission plan, or package, or whatever they did these days – Saw’s approach would have been to land here, blasters blazing, with a small platoon of partisans – they had to improvise and hope everyone was more interested in the beautiful scenery than stray comm signals.

“Hang on,” Cassian said, a keen note to his voice, and she slowed her casual stroll along the beach. “Half a klick from the shore. There’s a…” his voice trailed off. “Reads like some kind of probe droid.”

“We’re not keeping it,” she said before she could stop herself, but even over comms she could hear him tapping away at a datapad, slipping into full mission mode.

(He owed her, she mused. Fifty credits worth.)

“Jyn,” he said, his voice suddenly urgent, and she barely caught herself from looking over towards where he was hidden. “Get out of there.”

She turned back to the horizon and saw an Imperial probe droid flying at her across the water. _Kriff_.

“Any bright ideas?” she asked, breaking into a run and heading towards the speeder park. She’d stashed a hidden blaster under her tourist clothes but it wouldn’t take out a probe droid. Grenades were back at the hotel, and Cassian was in all likelihood racing to meet her, protocol be damned.

“Kay,” he called on the comms, and she could hear the quick breaths of his run. “Extraction, now! Coordinates 3-2-0-2-8 by 3-2-2-0-7!” A moment later, he appeared from a storefront, falling into a run with her. Maybe they could lose the droid in the crowd, hide out in one of the stores until K-2 could make it to the beach.

She barely had time to scratch _that_ plan – Imperial probe droids would self-detonate, but that wasn’t likely here – before Lieutenant Green-Behind-the-Ears stepped out in front of them, a shaky blaster extended at them.

Cassian took him out without a thought, and that’s when the squadron of stormtroopers turned down their street.

After that, she barely had time to drag Cassian down an alley before the shooting started.

+

“Hands up,” the squad leader repeated, gesturing his blaster dramatically at them both. Cassian had his hands up, about to talk his way out of the situation, but by her read they’d both end up in Wobani Labor Camp again, or worse, if they got that far.

They were definitely out of time – but not out of luck. She’d always been able to manufacture some of that, even as one of Saw’s Partisans - _especially_ as one of Saw’s Partisans.

Gathering the last of her acceleration, she raced towards the stormtroopers and dropped into a hard slide aimed at the leader’s boots. She took him out from the knees down and hit him over the helmet with his own blaster a second later. The other stormtroopers opened fire wildly, too afraid to risk hitting their squad leader but desperate to prove themselves. Green, just like their lieutenant back at the resort.

It was their only chance.

Cassian had pulled a small blaster from his boot and was firing from behind a column as she grabbed the arm of one stormtrooper and swung him into his nearest comrade, taking another down with him unexpectedly. She was outgunned, and Cassian’s blaster wouldn’t hold up, and Draven was going to get an _earful_ if she lived through this and –

With a loud roar, blaster fire rained down on them from a U-Wing that had seen better days. K-2 was no pilot, but it didn’t take much skill to hover a ship over a squadron of stormtroopers and open fire. She dove away from the mad scramble, landing near Cassian, and passed him a fresh blaster.

“You think he was aiming for me?” she asked, almost cheerful again, and Cassian slammed the cartridge back into the blaster.

“Ask him later,” he said, peering around the column. “We’ll have to make a run for it.”

He was breathing hard, and had probably torn some stitches, and his eyes were bright. For half a heartbeat she took him in and then nodded.

“Together,” she said.

He nodded, his mouth a hard line, and she took a deep breath before swinging back out of cover.

After that, there was no time, and no luck.

They just ran.

+

“Fifty credits,” Cassian said at her side, appearing from nowhere as he pressed the credits into her surprised palm. “You were right.”

“I know,” she said and tilted her head. “I’m right a lot of the time.”

“Really,” Cassian said, sliding atop the barstool next to her. The cantina bar on _Home One_ could hardly match up to the resort, but the barstools were still too high for her legs. “Enlighten me.”

She frowned. “I was right about Saw,” she pointed out, and he nodded. “And about my father at Eadu.” He didn’t answer, so she pressed on. “And I was right about the plans at Scarif.”

“And?” he asked with an arch look, as if she had yet to make her point.

“And you can trust my instincts,” she said without preparation, earning a surprised look from him in turn. “Like I’ve learned to trust yours.”

Stealing a look around them to check their audience, or lack thereof, he slid his palm under hers, the quiet link of their hands speaking volumes.

“I know,” he said. “And I really wasn’t told about this. It was,” he paused, searching, “a conditional mission.” When she furrowed her brow, he added, “There’s no such thing as shore leave.”

She bit her tongue at that, holding back a running commentary on the Alliance for Cassian’s sake.

“The Alliance should send you on more conditional missions,” she said instead, squeezing his hand. “Someplace far on the Outer Rim. Away from action.”

He smiled then, almost carefree as he let the rebel officer take a backseat.

“Only if you come,” he said and then cut himself off, as if he’d said too much.

Instead, she grinned, closing the space between them to steal a kiss. His hands slipped free from hers to cradle her jaw, just barely holding her close to him, as if he was still afraid she’d slip away. Reluctantly, she broke the kiss but stayed close and murmured, “Only if we can get more of those fruity drinks. With the straws.”

When he pulled her close again for another kiss, heedless of any attention, she felt herself slip away, someplace on the other side of the galaxy, an almost-oasis in the midst of war. Someplace warm, with warm beaches, and drinks that made her fingers and toes tingle, and private rooms, and Cassian.

(Someplace, she thought, just like this.)

_Finis_

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I intended "conditional mission" to be along the lines of...the Alliance didn't _intend_ for there to be a mission, necessarily, but they're at war. Soldiers are always ready. I get how that might have been confusing!
> 
> I'm [ladytharen](http://ladytharen.tumblr.com/) at Tumblr if you want to say hi :)


End file.
